FIRST Minister Rhodri Morgan visited the National Slate Museum, Llanberis, which will be representing Wales at a major international cultural event in the United States next month.

Wales will be the featured nation at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, in Washington DC, which takes place on the National Mall.

Representatives from the National Slate Museum will be among around 100 participants from Wales taking part in the festival, where they will be showcasing the craft of slate cutting to the many thousands of visitors to the festival.

During his visit to the museum on Friday, the First Minister met quarryman Dafydd Davies and Dafydd Roberts, the museum’s keeper.

The museum has been given two tonnes of slate by Rigcycle Ltd who own Penrhyn Quarry, in Bethesda and the Ffestiniog Slate Quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog, to take over to the festival.

They will be working alongside another North Wales participant, artist Howard Bowcott from Penrhyndeudraeth, who will be creating a pyramid sculpture at the festival from the waste created by the slate splitting. Howard has also been given slate from Greaves Welsh Slate Company Ltd.

Dafydd Davies will also be fashioning slates that will be hung on a metal frame made by Howard to create a xylophone type sound.

The First Minister said: “Welsh slate has a huge reputation as a building material all around the world and is an iconic part of the industrial heritage of North Wales. That is why it will feature at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, where we will be showcasing Wales and its many contemporary cultures and traditions to more than one million visitors from across the USA and further afield.”

Dafydd Roberts added:“We’re taking Welsh slate with us for our splitting demonstrations at the Smithsonian, not only because we know how to work with Welsh slate but also because we know that Welsh slate is the best in the world and felt it was important that this was shown to all the visitors at the festival.”